Oh happy living things! No tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unware.
The selfsame moment I could pray:
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
From Part the Fourth, Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Coleridge
I never made a point of reading Beatrix Potter when I was a skinny boy - I can remember being unsettled by Mr McGregor - I had a horror of being baked into a pie and eaten -
Bizarrely, I then preferred my hoarded war comics - I sated myself with drawings of square jawed Tommies, biffing krauts, or swinging from parachutes - the comics had titles like Bulldog Breed - I then moved on to horror - the first Arrow horror paperback I bought was The Lair of the White Worm - its cover depicted a well head, blue vapour issuing from its depths - I was transfixed by this lurid tale -
Since then, I have read crazily, like a library cormorant - but I can still remember, when I stare into the darkness, my night time terrors - there, surely, is Arabella March, lissome and cruel -
When we visited Hill Top, I recalled the terror of Peter Rabbit, hiding in the watering can - I imagined myself, scurrying madly through the dangerous garden -
We'd driven there from Bowness on Windermere - the long farm house was hard to find - the low ceilinged rooms were crammed full of dark furniture, photographs and sad oil paintings - oldsters with shining eyes waited for their turn to enter the house - squads of elfin Japanese girls aimed their I Phones - an American woman praised Renee Zellweger's portrayal of Beatrix Potter in the film -
I walked around the garden, alert for the invisible menace of Mr McGregor - I then saw a tiny mouse, frozen with dread - it crouched upon the path, with its neat tail and exquisite paws -
I felt full of pity and love for this helpless creature - all of the cleverness and shame left my heart -
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